WordPress - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

 

 

 

What does the "Keep this post (or page) private" checkbox do?

• If you check "Keep this post/page private", your post or page will only be visible to logged in users of the blog.
• "Private:" will be displayed at the beginning of the post or page's title, as a reminder.
• In the Manage Posts/Pages screen, any private posts/pages will have " - Private" displayed at the end of their title.
• Any attempt to display a private post or page by someone who's not logged in will just generate a "404 page not found" error.
• Warning: Even if you mark a post or page private, it will still be visible to logged in Site Administrators.

 

Where might private posts and pages be useful?

This isn't a feature that we've yet seen anyone using, so these are just a few initial thoughts. If you've some more ideas, why not add them?

• If you use a WordPress blog as an e-portfolio, private posts offer a way to include reflective posts which aren't intended for a public audience.
• In an e-portfolio which is more of a public showcase for completed work, private posts and pages could be used to record the process of creating the outcomes, perhaps for assessment purposes.
• Where copyright restrictions prohibit publishing material on the public internet.
• ...??

 

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How do I add a horizontal line in a Post or Page?

Use the Code tab, and place a "horizontal rule" tag like this where you want the horizontal line to appear:

 

<hr />

 

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How do I create more than one blog?

You can have any number of blogs, but you can't create them using the normal sign-up page. That's because WordPress creates a new user account for you as part of the sign-up process.  As soon as you go to create a new blog it will complain, saying that the email address is already in use.

Getting round this is easy once you know how:

• Go to your existing blog and log in.

• Once you've successfully logged in, you'll see the Dashboard of your blog.

• Look at the address bar of your browser (e.g. Internet Explorer). You'll see an address like this:

http://edubuzz.org/blogs/myblogname/wp-admin/index.php - where myblogname is your existing blog's name.

•  Edit that address by replacing /wp-admin/index.php with /wp-signup.php. The new line will look like this:

http://edubuzz.org/blogs/myblogname/wp-signup.php

• Then hit return, and you'll see a message like this:

Get another Edubuzz.org blog in seconds

Welcome back, David Gilmour. By filling out the form below, you can add another blog to your account. There is no limit to the number of blogs you can have, so create to your heart's content, but blog responsibly.

Here are the blogs you already have:

• edubuzz.org/blogs/myblogname
• edubuzz.org/blogs/mylearninglog
• edubuzz.org/blogs/myschoolwebsite
• edubuzz.org/blogs/myclassblog

If you’re not going to use a great blog name, leave it for a new user.

 

You'll also be asked, of course, for the new blog's name and title. Just fill them in and hit the Create Blog button.

 

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How do I edit blog posts in HTML?

Behind the scenes, blog posts are stored using a markup language called XHTML. That enables formatting information, for example, to be stored as well as the text you type. This language is very similar to the HTML used for web pages. Sometimes it can be helpful to see and edit the XHTML directly - you can do that by clicking on the Code tab of the editor.

 

Here's how you can set yourself to work in the XHTML editor all the time.

• Click the My Profile link in the top right corner of the admin interface
• On your Profile screen, look for a check-box labelled "Use the visual rich editor when writing". It's normally checked.
• Click the check-box to uncheck it.
• Click the button labelled Update Profile to save the change

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How do I change the contents of my blog's sidebars?

WordPress's Sidebar Widgets let you drag and drop Widgets including Recent Comments, Recent Posts and Blogroll (Links) in the sidebar(s) of your blog.  There's now no need to activate a Plugin: the current version includes a permanent "Widgets" option in the Presentation menu. Most themes work well with widgets, but one or two don't. Gray gets Green, for example, doesn't.

 

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How do I put an image in my blog's sidebar?

This is a two-step process:

• upload the image to the server
• make it appear in the sidebar

 

Once you've got an image that's the right size, upload it using the Upload part of the Write Post screen just as if you were going to use it in a post. Once that's done we need to know the URL for that uploaded file. You can find that by clicking on the Edit option beside the thumbnail image in the Upload area. It's a good idea to copy that to reduce risk of typing errors.

 

To make it appear in the sidebar, we use a Text widget, because they allow us to use not just text, but also HTML, the language of the web. In HTML, we can tell the blog to display an image, tell it where to find it, and specify some alternative text for screen reader programs to read out to visually impaired visitors to our site.

 

Go to Presentation / Widgets, and drag a Text widget into your sidebar. Click its Configure button to reveal the title and content fields. You can leave the title blank if you want. Enter the HTML for the image into the main text box.

 

Here's an example of what you might add:

 

<img src="http://edubuzz.org/blogs/athelstaneford/files/2007/08/athel-welcome-small.jpg" alt="Athelstaneford Welcome sign" />

 

This is the simplest way to do it with the minimum information. The alt text is needed or it won't work.

 

 

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How do I upload an image for the header of my blog, or a blogroll link?

Some themes, such as Regulus and Freshy, let you use your own image - but they ask you for the URL of the image file, so it has to be on the web somewhere.

 

Also, you might want a Blogroll link to display an image, say a school logo, rather than just text.  In the Blogroll link editor, under Advanced,  you can specify an image URL. You can see this being used on the Careers blog.

 

So how do you get from having an image you want to use, to having a URL for it that you can enter in the Theme or Blogroll options? It's a two-step process:

1. Upload the image to your blog
2. Find out the URL for the uploaded image

 

If you've a blog, you've got the tools to upload images to the web. This is what you're doing when you upload an image for use in a post.

 

The way you upload any file to your site is by going to Write Post (or Write Page) and using the Upload tools below the main editor window. Just browse for the file on your disk, give it a title, and click Upload. It's just the same way you upload an image (or any other file, such as an mp3) for use in a post. The only difference is that you don't want to use it in a Post.

 

To find the location of the uploaded file, click on it in the Upload area (you might need to click Browse All). That will display some choices for using your image in a Post (whether to use Thumbnail, whether to link to the full-size image). Ignore that, and click the Edit link that's just beside the Description you provided.

 

The Edit link is for changing the Title and Description info, but once you're in there you'll see it also displays the full URL for your uploaded image. Select that text and copy it (Ctrl-C on a PC), and you've got the image URL to paste (Ctrl-V) into the Theme's "Image URL" field. Done!